Well, yeah, you know the saying. This is aesthetically an outgrowth of the Lightweight Nuclear Plant Spruance (link) drawn so capably by Ace. As always happens, it got huge because I am not Congress and I do not have a budget.
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Y'all're never going to read all this damn text without a hint of a picture, so here's a fig leaf:
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So, Zumwalt establishes for us what the USN thinks is (or thought was) necessary for an objective shore bombardment surface combatant. What if we cross that with this conventional hull and nuclear plant, and the 18' version of AMDR? Lots of commonality with various outgrowths of my Magic Fusion Frigate/Destroyer; the nuclear plant on this boat has grown nebulous, but it's got plenty of volume and weight devoted to it. So, magic, whatever. I don't like uptakes.
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AMDR-18' is quoted in Raytheon marketing (PDF) as being able to detect (compared to SPY-1D(V)) a target of half the RCS at four times the distance. Because it's in aspirational marketing, I decided upon it as the necessary capability. Because I can.

IFF is provided by a 10x2' array similar to that shown on EASR renderings.

AMDR-S is backed by a 6x4' AMDR-X array, sufficient for horizon search and illumination.

VLS is always a tricky subject, and I decided upon a modular concept that trades steel and air (again, cheap) for extreme upgradability twenty or forty years hence. A 10x6.5x9m (LxWxD) unit holds four 3m drums, each of which is interchangeable with 7 28" cells (Mk 57), 8 24" cells (Mk 41), or 14 18" cells (big enough for VL-ASROC or SM-MR, or quadpack RAM-II or Nulka). Presumably if a very beefy CPGS or similar system is required in the future, we might end up with what would look like very stubby Trident. The point is, the interface allows it without cutting steel in a costly refit. We have four such units, for 20 drums. Presuming a single-size outfit (not shocking in practice), we could ship 140 28" cells or 160 24" cells.

Two helos is mandatory, obviously, but they might as well be AW-101/Chinook. Steel is... what's the word? Cheap.

By the power of $$$, nearly all of our ancillary comms are phased arrays. I am presuming Phasor's Ku-band satcom (PDF) technology is adaptable to at least C-band. We handle all satcom with these arrays, as well as TCDL (an outgrowth of Hawk Link) and CEC. On any low-elevation bearing, there are two each C-band, S-band, and Ka/Ku-band 5x5' array, each sufficient for 4' WSC-6 performance at large off-boresight angles. They are all physically masked from high-power radar and ECM. At high elevation, we have larger deck-parallel arrays aft, equivalent to 7' WSC-6.

UHF satcom appears to be offered by ICAS, but we also have two OE-82-scale arrays for high elevation use.

I ended up sticking with 155mm AGS, not entirely happily. Events of the last decade make a strong argument for ditching specialty calibers in favor of leveraging development money on 5"/54, which comes from a wide variety of western sources. I ended up deciding that any plausible 5"/54 development (e.g. PDF) could be trivially sabot'd into 155mm, and the latter just plain offers better kinematics and more room for future development. No decision on this design had me wavering back and forth more than AGS versus 5"/62.

The secondary armament may look familiar; it's the 50mm super-Bushmaster EAPS (PDF 12). This CIWS on steroids offers us legitimate C-RAM capability, and I can't imagine it would be unable to cope with AShMs at least as well as a system as pitiful as Phalanx. Guided 50mm with forward-firing multiple EFP ought to handle the small boat threat nicely, of course.

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Decoys and minor VLS are handled by four each Centurion launchers (PDF) and XM501 NLOS-LS launchers. The latter is a notional lengthening of the real XM501 (PDF) to handle Nulka. Presumably they'd also carry NLOS-PAM or similar to kill all of the light boats. All of these can be reloaded in a seaway from an elevator serving the below-decks magazine.

Two Excalibur-derived (PDF) lasers round out the armament. These are notionally 220kW units, sufficient to be death to small boats and UAVs. This is conservatively specified as 1/4 of the power-per-area of Excalibur, and it's not hard to imagine these would actually be 500kW units.

We have a forward mission bay, helpfully forced by removal space for the forward reactor. This ought to handle at least 4x 9m RHIB if we wanted to ship them, although the low headroom limits use of the inner payloads. More likely, I think, is 3x 9m RHIB (e.g., one stbd serving as a dedicated ship's boat, two to port for VBSS), possibly with some containerized payload inboard of those.

The rear mission bay is notionally dedicated to ASW payloads, but it could serve up to 3 11m RHIB. More likely is MFTAS and CAPTAS-IV, with a single 9m RHIB on the centerline as a rapid-reaction boat. This bay has 6m headroom, and could transfer payloads over each other.

The roller doors amidships conceal fairly conventional UNREP spaces.

I've sort of given up on attempting to understand modern sonar. SQS-53C is at least pretty good, and more and more it seems like long-distance detection and tracking is moving out of hull sonars and into VDS and towed array. Fair enough.

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She's big, 775x73.5x22ft for a full load displacement a hair under 20,000 tons. For a destroyer, twenty thousand blessed tons! Yes, well, whatever. Steel and air are cheap compared to offering stability and survivability to critical systems.

Backup power is from three LM500 SSGTG (4.2MW ea). Two of these are amidships, above the hangar, and one is right aft. These are backed by three Cat C18 emergency diesels, two forward and one aft. Three Thrustmaster TH1000MLR electric azimuth thrusters (two well forward) offer get-me-home power as well as a semblance of dynamic positioning independent of tugs.

ESM was a focus of this drawing. We have SEWIP Block 3 in the corners, backed by ES-3701 at the masthead. Comms-band direction finding is handled by ICAS; MF and HF DF is provided by four sets of eight deck-edge antennas as well as a Classic Outboard scale installation high on the mast.

As usual, comms is also a big focus. As well as the satcom described above, and the obvious ICAS, we have six AS-2537C/SR on tilting mounts for HF from 1600kHz-30MHz. Four VMB-11512-N in the corners provide short-range UHF and VHF coverage. High on the mast we have a pair of VMB-11512-N and a pair of VAS-1016/A for lower frequency VHF. All antennas are Valcom Guelph, to reward them for having an excellent web presence with specifications and manuals available to the public. Ball's in your court, Thales

Finally, we have a pair of my favorite OE-538, on erectable masts. OE-538 offers reception from VLF-MF, and transceive from HF-UHF. As if that weren't enough, it has IFF transceive and LDR UHF satcom transceive. I love OE-538.

EO/IR was not neglected. AAQ(SAQ)-37 Distributed Aperture System (PDF) is fitted high on the mast for early warning, backed by UV missile warners like AAR-54 (PDF). These serve eight DIRCM turrets like AAQ-24 DIRCM (PDF), into which I also handwave a laser illuminator capability. Seems not unreasonable - they already have the tracking hardware and software, and I want to be able to spew NLOS-PAM in all directions to handle small craft. Two MX-10MS (PDF) offer long-range high-resolution imaging of specific targets of interest.

Nav radar is something I've never given much thought, although Fitzgerald's collision certainly reminded me to think of it. Two each Kelvin Hughes Sharpeye S-band and upmast X-band radars (PDF) offer navigation support (although I would have to figure the Seawatcher 100 from the I-mast would offer useful nav support as well). The Kelvin Hughes radars are damnably hard to draw in Shipbucket format, and I'm open to ideas for how to better represent them.
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I do fear that the hull is too shallow at this point to be structurally sound. On the other hand, we have what amount to full box girders running the length of the stressed section. On the third hand, add more steel! Anyway,

Edited to add: We can support a crew of up to 450 (Mk 8 liferafts, 12-1 * 50). I suspect the actual ship's complement would be rather smaller, but this way we can support additional manning attached to modular payloads.

A note about phased arrays... the Phasor-based installations are low-power, unsuitable for radar use. However, they're extremely thin (about 1"/3cm), and so they are mounted external to the shell of the ship/mast and do not penetrate. This means they can be mounted quite close to each other and do not have any great structural impact. I've attempted to convey this with subtle shading around the antennas. Substantial radar phased arrays, in contrast, are several feet deep and do penetrate the structure. They must have substantial separation from other penetrations or from the edges of the structure, and they are not counter-shaded.

Last edited by erik_t on July 17th, 2017, 2:05 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I am quite curious what the steps were getting from my (relatively speaking) rather small LWNP concept into this monster did you start out with my drawing and kept expanding, or did you follow it's lines (with the reactor removal hatches) and used that as a base for a much larger ship?

anyways, you would have to round off the connection points to the hull a bit for it, but you could get the hull strength more then enough by keeping the long lower superstructure level part of the strength girder (as far as I can see, this is done also on the USS Zumwalt, check the rounded part which was visible before they placed the hangar)

I will have to read the wall of text again to truly understand all of it, but looking great!

_________________Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.

The outline reminds me very much of a stealthy Long Beach. Certainly a very impressive looking ship and from the equipment fit you've outlined, certainly a capable vessel.
Steel is cheap but I can't help thinking this is a tad too big, but from the layout and internal diagrams I don't think you could reduce length to make that much difference without sacrificing VLS tubes or one of the 155mm AGS.

I suspect I could trim some length from the flight deck area, but I feel like I need the volume aft for trim reasons. The alternate interpretation is that I could pack more systems (VLS, presumably) into that area, but that's exactly the mindset that must be fought when arguing in favor of a big hull. The "oh, this hull is too cramped -> oh, this hull is huge, clearly the ship is under-armed, let's add more stuff" spiral is dangerous.

As an aside, the "seems too big, but is in fact length-limited" is exactly the thread you hear when reading period discussions of Spruance.

This is awesome - I love the design commentary that always comes with your posts. Don't let NationStates find this thread though!

The way you've illustrated the missile loadout is also really cool. Maybe a small accompanying sheet explaining what each missile/torpedo/countermeasure is would be nice for us neophytes of modern warship design!

I'd be happy to make up a sheet, but it's kinda late. For now, in order from left to right on the main drawing (I'm not hunting links but all of the real systems should be Google-friendly terms)

50mm EAPS (or many other tiny calibers at this scale )

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18" quadpack: NLOS-LS Precision Attack Munition in SARH form, NLOS-PAM in laser-guided form [note these could equally depict Hellfire, Brimstone, or other small SSMs in service or in concept], RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile Block II, Nulka

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And LRLAP or similar from the 155mm guns.
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Some refiguring of the topside arrangements has improved a lot of stuff. The lasers have a better-established field of fire (I moved the XM501-L VLS inboard because why bother to have it outboard?). By making O-1 discontinuous (which seems a minor price to pay) we can better handle containers forward and unify the small boat outfit with 11m RHIB. Y'know, if we want. Options without cutting steel are the persistent goal.
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In other news, I'm a moron/idiot who can't do math. Also I didn't realize how fine the hull would get forward. We now have three major VLS installations at 12.5x7.5x9m LxWxD, for 6x3 3m drums. This would be a total of 126 (soooo close to Tico!) 28" or 144 24", if we shipped exclusively those rounds.
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.O-3 arrangement of lasers, Centurion decoy launchers, etc
.Revised side view
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I note that there are some forward low-elevation (really, horizon) angles where we do not have full unobstructed dual satcom/datalink views. I am disinclined to worry about this - it seems unlikely that we need to see below about 10deg elevation for satcom in practice. These forward arrays are blanked at almost exactly zero elevation by the forward 50mm mount. In these unusual (?) circumstances, we can use the upmast arrays for continuous service.

I am quite curious what the steps were getting from my (relatively speaking) rather small LWNP concept into this monster did you start out with my drawing and kept expanding, or did you follow it's lines (with the reactor removal hatches) and used that as a base for a much larger ship?

I sort of took it as an example of what a compact-superstructure dual-reactor concept might look like. Certainly I didn't envision this in any way a "growth" of the LWNP Spruance. It's sized by systems, mostly, and I refused to accept less than two AGS and Tico-class VLS cell count. I also rejected the length-saving approach of PVLS - I think it's uniquely suited to the tumblehome hull, and I rejected the tumblehome hull.

Note by way of comparison, NAVSEA considered the 155mm VGAS to be a possible backfit for a 64-cell Mk 41, and AGS has surely grown beyond the dimensional confines of VGAS. If that mindset is taken, we see that Zumwalt is more like a 256-cell destroyer in combat system volume, and DDG-20kT is somewhat bigger still! Suddenly the displacements make much more sense; if we imagine each AGS as a 64-cell VLS, then the ratio of displacement to cells (in tFL/cell) is 102 for a Burke III and 78 for DDG-20kT; by displacement to AMDR-S RMA, it's 66 for Burke III and 72 for DDG-20kT.

Of course these systems are expensive and so we would not expect DDG-20kT to be anywhere near as "cheap" (lol) as a Burke III, but the modularity of the concept allows it to be fitted for but not with. You can never pack 18' AMDR onto a Burke hull, but you can launch a Burke III combat system (or rough equivalent) on this hull.

Quote:

anyways, you would have to round off the connection points to the hull a bit for it, but you could get the hull strength more then enough by keeping the long lower superstructure level part of the strength girder (as far as I can see, this is done also on the USS Zumwalt, check the rounded part which was visible before they placed the hangar)

I'm familiar with the Zumwalt's hidden "traditional"-looking stress relief. That's not the direction I wanted to go on this drawing. Rather, the superstructure is intended explicitly as not part of the hull girder. You may note counter-shaded vertical lines just aft of the hangar and just aft of the forward mission bay - these are intended to indicate expansion joints. Use of the superstructure as a load path was seen as a small-ship weight-saving measure that we were "buying" our way out of with air and steel. Consider in this vein the arguments presented in the CGBL paper, that we might have strayed from best practices from over-exposure to over-evolved Spruances and other pre-Tomahawk escorts that did not really need to be survivable.

(I can't find the paper right now, annoyingly)

EDIT: Of course, if we used O-1 as part of the structural girder, I think the forward mission bay would be untenable. And the hull is deeper than Long Beach on about the same length, so I think it ought to be workable.

Some changes, although overall everything is pretty similar. She grew to mumble mumble tons I SAID STEEL IS CHEAP AND AIR IS FREE OKAY
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Reminder, we use the 69-RMA configuration of SPY-6, 18' on a square (pdf)

Since there's an expansion joint forward of the main superstructure block (just aft of the forward reactor), no need to maintain constant O1 deck height here. Thus, 11m boats are back! I missed them. But seriously, we can think about having at least four 11m RHIB, two here and two aft. Our crew capacity has expanded to compensate, up to 550 souls based on liferaft requirements. I suspect that, in practice, more like 350 would come aboard.

I've added substantial target acquisition sets for the 50mm EAPS. I envision these as 2x1 block (i.e., 4'x2') AMDR-X rotating at 60RPM or what have you. This nicely covers any sort of desire for a backup/casualty air search set -- these ought to be substantially more capable than, say, a WM20-series egg. Really, they ought to be good to the horizon against most targets, way better than SPQ-9B. And hurrah, common parts.

One way in which I was cribbing from Ace's LWNP Sprucan is in secondary generator capacity. LWNP had a short enough lifespan that you might actually envision low-speed and hotel service on SSGTG, but we do not presume short-lifetime reactors. In all practical use, the secondary generators can stay quiet. As such, I specify 2+1 Fairbanks-Morse 38 8-1/8 diesel gensets, in use in the submarine service for... since the pancake diesels failed in the 1950s. This is not a super efficient secondary plant, or a high power density secondary plant, but it is bulletproof reliable (probably literally). Two generators forward, one aft, each around 3MWe. I went with the 12-cylinder version, although I would standardize on whatever modern nuclear submarines use. The 9-cylinder version would be just fine too. We do lose a single 8'-diameter VLS drum for intake and exhaust, but whatever.

Oh, yes, VLS is now drum-ified. Frankly, the previous setup was stupid: a containerized set of containerized drums of containerized VLS? C'mon. Each drum is good for 4x 32", 7x 28" (i.e., Mk 57), 8x 24" (i.e., Mk 41), or 14x 18" (enough for SM-MR/ASROC/LRASM) cells, for twenty drums on the DD/DDG configuration. If loaded full of the equivalents, that's 140 Mk 57 equivalent or 160 Mk 41. If everything were 32" (!!!), that's 80 cells -- the same as Zumwalt.

DD/DDG configuration... yes, we have both now. There's a CG too, about which more later. The DD envisions the equivalent of a 2x1 ELM-2090 L-band phased array for great low-observable justice. On the DD, this is backed by a 3x3 RMA SPY-6 S-band, basically the EASR configuration (and deemed equivalent to SPY-1D(V) (pdf ). Frequency diversity is awesome!

The DDG configuration has lost the lame IFF-only L-band unit in favor of what is basically a derivative of APY-9, for some credible search capability.

In both (all) configurations, the pair of UHF FLTSATCOM domes on O-4 have been replaced with two UHF and two Navy Multiband Terminal (pdf) for, mostly, utilization of leased civilian capacity. We retain all of the previous phased arrays for SHF/EHF use.

The latest thing I obsess over is navigation radar (thanks, Fitzgerald): two S-band Kelvin Hughes SharpEye units atop the pilothouse and hangar, two SPS-73 atop the mast (on the beams), and a Furuno 1834 (the same unit used on USN 11m RHIBs) forward atop the mast.

Decoys and minor VLS (all atop the hangar roof, supplied via elevator) are now four Chemring Centurion, for passive decoys and RGM-176, and four XM501(V), supporting anything up to Nulka or Hellfire size.

Speaking of Hellfire, we have dedicated MMW phased arrays in the mast (next to the Thales Gatekeeper units near the crease).

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Right, cruisers. We have those too, now. Same hull, some changes (yay commonality!) What's a cruiser in the modern USN context? As far as I can tell, it can host a divisional AAW staff. So,

We add a cute little flag bridge in the second level of the universal megamast. This has implications for internal layout that I will post if anybody cares.

Because a twenty seven thousand ton cruiser is even less suited to stupid littoral operation than a twenty seven thousand ton destroyer, we land Mount 62 for more VLS. 26 drums, equivalent to 182 Mk 57 or 208 Mk 41. These are, as a reminder, interchangeable as an individual unit. If we need lots of LRASM, or whatever, we pack those at 15x. If we only care about carrying four SM-3XXL, we only need to dedicate a single drum to that. Basically, this is cheating, but I don't care. Yay technology!

As mentioned, flag bridge and staff. We lose some space in the forward mission bay -- now I figure two 7m boats and additional crew and staff to handle the flag duties.

One of the major changes in the cruiser variant is we lose some helo capacity, in favor of 7'-equivalent WSC-6. This drops us from 2x AW101 to an AW101 and a MQ-8C, probably, although there's a lot of fiddling to be done in the hangar and I'm being pretty generous in clearances. It wouldn't shock me if you could fit two MH-60s in there.

It's huge! I don't care /slash/ steel is cheap and air is free! Let's unify on a single major combatant and accept a flotilla of 24 knot frigates for piratebusting!

Wow! I always liked Your megalomaniac (well, I have to agree with Hood here ) designs and their descriptions (even though I always preferred those "Cold War" ones - but that's not Your fault that Stealth is just inherently ugly ).